Coerção e subespecificação: nomes nus no inglês e no português brasileiro

Gitanna Bezerra; Roberta Pires de Oliveira; Dionatan Bastos Cardozo; Diego Rodrigues Lopes

doi:10.31513/linguistica.2024.v20n3a65504

Authors

Gitanna Bezerra University of Pernambuco (UPE) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5433-387X
Roberta Pires de Oliveira Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4946-7205
Dionatan Bastos Cardozo Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6486-8448
Diego Rodrigues Lopes Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0149-4626

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31513/linguistica.2024.v20n3a65504

Abstract

This paper investigates the semantics of bare nouns in English and Brazilian Portuguese, analyzing the results of experiments in the count-mass domain in both languages. Specifically, it examines the results for English (Frisson; Frazier, 2005) and for Brazilian Portuguese (Lima, 2019; Lopes, 2024; Cardozo, 2024). In English, bare singulars are coerced into mass in mass contexts, and mass nouns are packed into units in count contexts (Frisson; Frazier, 2005). Thus, in English, nouns enter into the semantic derivation with the information that it is either mass or count. The experiments in Brazilian Portuguese show that this is not so in this language. Lima (2019) did not find any additional processing cost from mass to count nor from count to mass, pointing towards polysemy. Lopes (2024) found additional processing for bare singulars in count contexts with numerals but no additional processing with measure phrases. Cardozo (2024) only found additional processing for plural quantifiers combined with pluralized mass nouns. All of them refute the hypothesis that the bare singular in Brazilian Portuguese behaves like a count noun (against Schmitt; Munn, 1999), since, in all experiments, it is compatible with mass contexts. Thus, the bare singular in English does not carry the same grammatical ingredients as the bare singular in Brazilian Portuguese. It is still an open question whether the bare singular in Brazilian Portuguese is underspecified (Pires de Oliveira, 2022) or a mass noun (Pires de Oliveira; Rothstein, 2011).
Keywords: Coercion. Bare nouns. Count-mass. Brazilian Portuguese. English.

Author Biographies

Gitanna Bezerra , University of Pernambuco (UPE)

Graduated in Portuguese Language and Literature from the Paraíba State University (2010), Master’s degree in Linguistics/Psycholinguistics from the Postgraduate Program in Linguistics /Federal University of Paraíba (2013), PhD in Linguistics/Psycholinguistics from the Postgraduate Program in Linguistics /Federal University of Paraíba (2017), with a sandwich period at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (2015-2016), Post-Doctorate in Sentence Processing from the University of Toronto (2018-2019), and Post-Doctorate in Syntactic-Semantic Processing from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (2021-2022). Currently, she is an assistant professor at the University of Pernambuco, Garanhuns. He founded and coordinates the Sentence Processing Laboratory, based at the University of Pernambuco, Garanhuns. She has particular interest in the following research areas: Sentence Processing (with an emphasis on syntactic processing and semantic processing), Syntax-semantic interface from a theoretical-experimental approach, Generative Syntax and Formal Semantics.

Roberta Pires de Oliveira, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)

1C Researcher at CNPq. Full Professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), with a Bachelor's degree in Linguistics from UNICAMP (1985), a Master's in Linguistics (UNICAMP, 1991), and a Ph.D. in Linguistics (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 1995). Postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 2004 to 2005, and at Harvard University from 2012 to 2013, funded by CAPES. Visiting professor at Harvard University in 2016. She teaches in the Undergraduate Language and Literature Program, the Graduate Program in English (PPGI), and the Graduate Program in Linguistics (PPGLG) at UFSC. She collaborates with Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard) on the semantics of bare nouns in Brazilian Portuguese. She leads two CNPq research groups: "Quantification across languages" and "Indefinites across languages." She coordinates the project "(In)definiteness in underrepresented languages," funded by the CNPq Humanities Call. Her areas of expertise include Formal Semantics and Pragmatics, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Linguistics, Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics, Education and Scientific Outreach. She coordinated the CAPES/COFECUB international cooperation project "Bare Nouns in Brazilian Portuguese: the syntax-semantics interface" with Prof. Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin (CNRS-LLF, Paris 7) from 2009 to 2012. She also coordinated the first distance-learning Undergraduate Portuguese Language Program at the Federal University of Santa Catarina from 2009 to 2012 and led the final phase of the second edition. She was part of the CAPES-Nufic Cooperation Project, coordinated by Prof. Maria José Foltran (UFPR). Currently, she coordinates the project "Indefiniteness across languages”.

Dionatan Bastos Cardozo, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)

Currently pursuing a PhD in Language and Cognition in the Graduate Program in English: Linguistic and Literary Studies (PPGI) at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Roberta Pires de Oliveira and co-supervision of Prof. Dr. Gitanna Brito Bezerra, with a scholarship from the Programa de Bolsas Universitárias de Santa Catarina (UNIEDU). Completed a sandwich period through the Internationalization Program (CAPES/PrInt) at the University of Toronto (U of T), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Suzi Lima. Holds a master's degree in Languages, also from the PPGI/UFSC, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Lêda Maria Braga Tomitch. Graduated in Portuguese/English Language and Literature from the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG).

Diego Rodrigues Lopes, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)

Graduated in Portuguese Language and Literature from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (2019), has a master’s degree in Linguistics from the same university (2024), and is currently pursuing a PhD in Linguistics at the same university.